


Walking into danger

by Brownhairandeyes



Category: MASH (TV)
Genre: Gen, Suicidal Thoughts, Unhealthy Coping Mechanisms
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-11-02
Updated: 2014-11-02
Packaged: 2018-02-23 20:56:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 458
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2555375
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Brownhairandeyes/pseuds/Brownhairandeyes
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"It took a while for BJ to pick up on the pattern and really notice and that factor caused him many restless nights because what if?<br/>It took him a while to see what Hawkeye did."</p>
            </blockquote>





	Walking into danger

It took a while for BJ to pick up on the pattern and really notice and that factor caused him many restless nights because what if?  
It took him a while to see what Hawkeye did.

Some days were better than others; sometimes no-one at all died in the 4077. Sometimes the worst cases died in transit before they even reached OR and that was bad, but it felt like the war’s fault, not their own inadequacies.  
But then there were the days when fourteen hours in surgery weren’t enough to treat the deluge of bodies flowing in. The days were so many boys died and blood stocks ran dry and even the gallows humour dried up by exhaustion and the cold presence of death.

Statistically, one those days, more of Hawkeye’s patients died than anybody else.   
Because he was the best out of them, BJ admitted this freely, so they gave him the worst in the hope he could save them and they would live.  
So when their pulses faded, their hearts' falter uncertainly, he would fight; fight the dying of the light for them.   
But sometimes, he lost.

A step for each death, a small enough thing you would think. But even a few steps matter when your friend starts walking into a minefield.  
Most days, with the normal casualties (and that phrase still hurts but it is a familiar ache by now) he was still safe in the few metres of safe zone that surrounded the camp before the minefield proper began. But on the days when the numbers of those who died in his hands were in the dozens he was walking into death.   
(Some small hated part of him wonders if Hawkeye, from dammed trial and –lack of- error knows roughly where the mines are and if he would ever cheat?)

So BJ helps or he at least tries to. Drags him pack to the swamp with its still rather than the bar with it’s so tempting walk back, jokes and makes small talk until light reappears in his friend’s, best friend’s eyes and then drift off into exhausted slumber safe in the knowledge not tonight.  
In a way it helps him decompress and set his own mind to rest or at least the best it can in a warzone. And from the honest surprise in Hawkeye’s demeanour when he tows him by arm to a tent demanding a rematch right now, he contemplates what his predecessor, the guy who didn’t even leave a letter, did instead and hopes like hell that he didn’t just let him drunkenly wonder into danger. He hopes.

Anyway, BJ won’t let Hawkeye step up and join the ever-growing ranks, not yet.  
(BJ doesn't want to be alone.)


End file.
